Old Business
by Mojave Dragonfly
Summary: Years later, Bran asks to meet with Will. He's been having odd dreams and Will is in them.


They met in Trewissick, at a new café built atop the cliffs. On the terrace, wobbly tables with bright umbrellas flapped in the ocean breeze, shading half of the café's patrons, while their companions hunched opposite them, squinting from the sunlight on the sea. Will gave Bran the shadowed side of the table.

Bran's dark glasses veiled his eyes as he glanced around at the terrace, the tourists, and out over the water. "Nice view." He ran one hand through his once-white hair, now dyed the color of tar.

Over a decade since Will had last seen him, and Bran had lost none of his restless energy, but the dyed hair was new.

Will leaned over the stone wall to look down on the beach below. The tide was coming in, each wave crawling closer to the caves beneath their feet, where once Simon and Barney Drew unearthed the Grail. "Yes, it is. I like it here."

They made some small talk—catching up on each other's lives. Will told him about his work for BBC1, where he'd wrangled his way into video editing. Since Will's brother was a producer, he'd hardly had to use any magic at all to land what Will considered the perfect job for a watchman on guard against any return of the Dark. Not that he mentioned that aspect to Bran, of course.

He learned from Bran about his latest girlfriend, and how he still wasn't sure she was "the one." Will watched his friend as he spoke about his life, waiting to hear why Bran had asked to meet him. Bran told him about jobs he'd had and jobs he'd lost in what he described as a "volatile" industry. Will remembered that Bran had become an engineer. It pleased him somehow to think of Arthur's son building things.

"Why is engineering so volatile?" he asked.

Bran shrugged. "It isn't really. No worse than other fields, I guess."

"Okay." Will waited.

"Do you ever hear from Jane Drew?" Bran asked.

Will's eyebrows rose. "No, why?"

"No reason. So you don't know what's become of her?"

"Living in London, last I heard." At first he'd had a struggle keeping the siblings from poking at the holes in their memories, feeding each other questions, but through the years he'd stayed in touch only with Bran. He waited.

Bran frowned at his hands on the table. He'd taken something out of a pocket and worried it with his fingers. "We've been friends a long time," he said, still looking at his hands. Will nodded. "I don't entirely remember how long, or how we first met."

"I came to Wales after I'd been sick."

Bran raised his head, his light-sensitive eyes still veiled by glasses. "Oh, oh yeah. But the Drews?"

Inwardly Will sighed. The war was over. His friends had been spared the trauma of remembering, and the gaps in their memories were wounds that should heal with time. It had worked for Simon, Jane and Barney. Now here was Bran, worrying at the scar, wondering why he couldn't remember. Will had already gone through the gentle misdirection he needed to do with the others years before.

"On holiday," he said.

"Not my holiday. I never got holidays."

"Theirs, then."

"I suppose." Bran put away whatever was in his hand and collected the waste from his meal. He stood to take it to a bin.

Will took a bite of his sandwich and waited.

Bran returned and ran his hand through his hair again. "That's not really what I wanted to talk about." He took a breath like he was steeling himself. "I have these dreams. Disturbing dreams. I've been having them for a long time. Sometimes when I'm awake, too, like visions or - memories."

Will listened with increasing sadness as Bran described the toll his remnant memories had taken on his life: poor sleep, damaged relationships, lost jobs, bad concentration. The memories harassed him like Furies, convincing him that there was something important he was supposed to accomplish, goading him into seeking for a destiny that he felt was out there, but was never revealed. Will didn't need to use the Sight to see Bran's misery. An ordinary man like John Rowland would have enjoyed blissful forgetfulness, but Bran was never ordinary.

"An old girlfriend –" It was always striking to see Bran blush, the crimson flush livid through his translucent skin. "She called it narcissism and megalomania. It's why we broke up, so now I'm afraid to say anything to anyone, but it never gets any better. I wanted to see you because – you're in these dreams. I can't shake the feeling that they're real, and if they are, you would know something."

Will considered, while two squawking seagulls fought over abandoned battered fish.

Bran took his silence poorly. "I know – believe me, I know how crazy it sounds. You're one of my oldest friends and I don't want to scare you with the- the crazy talk. I thought you might – stick it with me?"

Will still couldn't answer. He was busy communing with every mystical source of knowledge he could access, searching, asking, for any purpose, any need, anywhere in the Stream of Time for Bran Davies to continue a connection to an ancient and ended war. He found nothing. There was no earthly or unearthly reason for Bran to remember. And the memories were destroying him.

Bran was still, and always would be, his friend. Son of Arthur, the pen dragon, and the noblest veteran of their epic victory. He deserved a life and peace – he had won it for himself and for everyone. But from Will he deserved even more: trust, freedom, loyalty.

Will leaned forward. "What do you want me to do?"

Bran stilled. "I want you to believe me."

"I believe you."

"I want you to – I need to – I can't live like this. If there's something you know that can – and if I'm just delusional, don't, uh, run away." He huffed a laugh, as if nothing he had just said was important, just joking around, it's not like this was about his sanity and his soul, or anything.

Will kept his face impassive, like Merriman used to do, turning to steel and ice inside. "What is that in your hand?"

Startled, Bran pulled his hand forward and looked at it like he didn't know he held anything. He opened his hand to show a small blue-green stone. Will stared at it, remembering.

"Bran," he spoke solemnly, "what if I told you a story of destiny and great purpose and battles of good and evil and wars won and lost and noble sacrifice and you were the center of it all?"

Bran swallowed. "Is it a true story?"

"Or," Will continued, "I could tell you that stone you've been clinging to is magic and it's been giving you these visions and all you have to do is get rid of it and the nightmares will end."

"Now you're just humoring me."

"I want you to choose, Bran."

"Which one is true? Are you telling me you do know about my dreams?"

"This isn't about the truth. This is about choosing the path you want to take."

"If I have some terrible destiny and I refuse it, won't other people suffer?"

Will softened. The suffering was over, the war was won. The son of Arthur no longer was tied to the future of humanity. But he couldn't tell Bran that, not yet. "I give you my word, there is no harm in either choice."

Bran fidgeted. "What is this, Will? Are you just – Are you saying I'm using this stone in some kind of subconscious way and I should part with it as therapy or something? I know I said I wanted you to believe me, but –"

"Am I not doing what you asked of me?" _My Lord?_

That brought Bran up short. He paused for a moment. "Yes. Yes I think you are." He was still a moment longer. "But I think you are offering me an out. Because –?" Now Will felt the full force of the Pendragon's regard. "Because you are my friend," Bran finished softly.

Will waited.

Bran rose and took the few steps to the stone wall protecting the café patrons from falling to their deaths. In full sun now, Bran stood against the sky. Will missed his white hair.

Will stood by his side. "There is no harm in either choice." Will's heart ached for his friend. He didn't need to go through this, to relive this. The once and future obligation had no future, now. But it was not Will's place to sway his choice.

But Bran Davies ap Arthur surprised him. "I don't know what this is," he said, looking down to where the tide fully covered the strand below, "but I know what feels real. I feel that you know more than I do, and you would not betray me." He handed Will the stone. "I want you to choose for me."

The stone tingled on Will's palm and he heard distant music. He looked from it to Bran. They stood there in solemn communion as the waves below crashed and the white birds above cried. The wind rose and stung their faces.

Will reached for the words of the Old Speech and, crying out to the sleeping powers of the Deep to accept this relic back into the mystery of their keeping, he hurled the stone out to sea. He and Bran lost sight of it in the hazy spray below.

Bran gripped the metal rail atop the wall and, smiling, called above the whipping wind, "So, how've you been?"


End file.
